


Memoization

by liathach (tselina)



Series: Sequence [6]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Age Difference, Multi, Multiple Pairings, Poly-Friendly Pairings, Post-Ana, Pre-Sombra, READ ALL WARNINGS FOR EACH CHAPTER, WARNINGS ARE IN NOTES, consent is important
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-16 13:43:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8104603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tselina/pseuds/liathach
Summary: Memoization maximizes processing power by storing information that can be recalled from memory, rather than monopolizing resources to re-calculate the required data.A short story that follows the Overwatch characters immediately after the Recall. Please read all chapter notes for disclaimers.NOTE (05/24/17): THIS FIC IS STILL COMPLETE AS-IS, BUT WILL BE REVISED IN THE FUTURE REGARDING NEW PERSONAL CANON & GAME CANON. As I didn't expect Sequence to be a series at all at the time, this was supposed to be a stand-alone fic! Which of course, is definitely not what happened!!!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING: Non-explicit discussion of child trafficking. Implication of a major character's childhood sexual abuse.**   
>  **PAIRINGS: Implied Mercy/McCree.**
> 
>  
> 
> If you'd like to know what McCree was up to prior to _Memoization_ , read Shoi's [Candescence](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9496943/chapters/21487733). (Read all the warnings!)

There is a complete stranger in Mercy's office. It is odd enough that Athena has let anyone but Tracer wander this far back in their reclaimed warehouse, let alone one of the many wide-eyed hopefuls. Overwatch is no longer internationally endorsed; the threat of government infiltration is high. Mercy and her fellow agents must be vigilant, must vet each individual to the last DNA strand.

The man has made himself at home. He sits in one of the rusted, fold-out chairs. Mercy cannot immediately see his face, curtained by uneven auburn fringe that has escaped a loosely clasped ponytail. She can see a broken nose and a full beard. He is square-shouldered, broad-chested, with brown trousers and fitted shirt showing signs of being darned more than once.  One leg is propped up at the knee, showing off hard, flat-toed boots with worn embroidery, sporting recently replaced soles. A wide-brimmed hat with a stiff leather band sits on top of a threadbare duffel. Tan lines are revealed below one half-rolled sleeve, paler in contrast to the deeper color of his sun-burnished skin. The left arm is an impressive metal construct, alight with glowing blue coolant and sporting well-articulated fingers. He is a man that is no stranger to difficult work, that much is apparent.

An empty gun holster hangs at his side. At least Athena had thought to disarm him before sending the stranger into Mercy's drab little work space. Her own stun pistol feels snug against her back holster, a sudden comfort: she is more than capable of putting a man down, even if he appears to have an extra twenty kilos on her.

She smiles at the stranger, though the gesture is a reflexive one, rather than one of apparent fondness. Since she was a child, Mercy has always found a way to keep a perpetual curl of her lips, to keep those around her at ease. It works on her patients, who need the comfort.

If history serves her well, it works on potential threats, too.

“A cowboy,” Mercy says, affecting a chipper lilt to her English. “How interesting! We haven’t one of those, yet.”

“No ma’am,” the man says. His voice is deep in his chest, a little rough. A smoker, perhaps. "You do have a big ol' gorilla, though. Figure there might be room for a fella like me, if'n that's the case."

"Well, we'll see."

The man watches her with sharp eyes as Mercy passes. She pulls a chair around, its wheels whining with disuse, and sits in front of him, straight-backed. She presents a hand, palm up.

“The hologram at the front must have given you a data pad for me to review, yes?”

“Yes," the man says. "Here you go, ma’am, you should find everything in order.”

The interview has a two-fold purpose. One: Mercy gets a feel of the applicant's disposition and temperament. Two: Mercy matches an applicant's words to what Athena has uncovered with her almighty omnipotence and compiled for Mercy's easy reference.

The first thing she notices does not bode well: ‘Harry Cassidy’ is most certainly _not_  the man's real name. It is portmanteau of a pair of famous outlaws from two centuries passed.

An assumed name, however, does not disqualify any potential agent. So, Mercy plays along.

“Mr. Cassidy," she says, "it looks as if you have been very busy in Pan-America the last few years. Would you elaborate on your work there, please?"

'Cassidy' smiles, something that looks a little too feral to be completely friendly. “I robbed trains,” he says, a twang to his native English. "Y'know, the usual."

Mercy reviews Athena's notes on the matter. Indeed, 'Mr. Cassidy' has a long list of arrest warrants: burglary, destruction of property, larceny, vehicle grand theft, wrongful death. Not exactly a sterling record, for a man that seems well pleased with himself. Athena admitting this man into the application pool alone seems even more suspect.

“A very interesting history," Mercy says. "Unique, even."

"I bet."

Mercy sets the pad on her knees, her clasped hands on top of its screen. She purses her lips, thinks of her next words carefully.

"Do you think we need a robber in our midst, Mr. Cassidy?”

“Maybe.” ‘Cassidy’ leans back in his chair, folding his arms. His mannerisms are impossibly familiar, like his drawl; it unsettles her, now, more than his list of felonies. “Might need gentleman thieves, though. Never know what needs gettin'. There an opening for that, instead?"”

“You are a self-professed 'thief', still, Mr. Cassidy. A proud one, at that."”

“Ma’am, forgive me for saying,” ‘Cassidy’ says, unfolding his legs, leaning his elbows on them, “but Overwatch ain’t exactly following the law neither.”

Mercy frowns.“I suppose -- I am aware it isn’t, but you must understand, Mr. Cassidy. We are still striving to regain legitimacy. Hiring criminals will not help our cause."

“How about this. Let's say I do _recovery_ , instead of robbery?” 'Cassidy' rubs his whiskered chin with his human hand. 

"I will need you to elaborate on that, Mr. Cassidy."

"Reclamation," he explains. "I _reclaim_ what ain’t another man’s to have in the first place, giving it back to those that've lost.”

“We do not endorse Robin Hood tactics either, I am sorry to say."

'Cassidy' claps a hand to his thigh. "Oh, ma'am, I don't steal _riches_ , not like Mr. Hood."

Mercy's fists clench briefly. "The what _do_ you 'reclaim' from these trains, Mr. Cassidy? Weapons? Omnic contraband?"

“Children.”

Mercy's eyes flick to the datapad.  _This_ is not detailed in his profile. “Children,” she repeats.

“Yeah, you know,” ‘Cassidy’ says. His voice lowers. He does not drawl so much, now. "Innocent kids trapped in that vein of blood poison that runs from the Arctic Circle to the damn Strait of Magellan."

Mercy is left without words, for a moment. Her hands shake, a little.

“That is -- very bold,” Mercy says. “Incredibly risky. Powerful people know there's more money in skin than one would assume."

"S'true, yes, ma'am."

"How long have you been in this -- recovery business, Mr. Cassidy?”

“Five, almost six years, now.”

“Almost six years. Impressive. You must be accomplished, to survive that long."

“Took down at least three lines in full, a bunch of auction houses busted, got a bunch of stop-off shut down --” ‘Cassidy’ counts on his fingers. “Aw, gee, I’d have to get you a list later, sorry ma’am. Found 'em good homes, or returned them to families, y’know, poor folk that thought they was sendin’ their kids to school."

“You seem to have a good insight into this business.”

“I have some bad wisdom of it, you might say.”

Mercy's skin prickles in gooseflesh. The datapad is set aside. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”

“Anyone worth their salt is sorry to hear that.” ‘Cassidy’s’ softens for his next words. “And I know you’re a good person, Doctor Angela Ziegler.”

Her full name stops her. It is a matter of public record. Anyone with a single-stream data connection could find that out. Currently, though, she is Mercy. Mercy, spoken from the lips of those in the trenches and the slums of refugee camps. Mercy, the name in bold red on Interpol’s watch list. Mercy, recruiter and _de facto_ leader of the reformed Overwatch. Mercy, now, even to herself.

‘Cassidy’ reaches out to her to grip her hand. He holds her gaze, and Mercy recognizes him, at last. She knows those eyes, deep brown with an infinite capacity for kindness.

She chokes with the revelation; she knows the stranger's real name: “ _Je_ _sse_.”

Jesse McCree does not look like the man Mercy had last seen six years ago. The beard disguises him, ages him beyond his thirty-seven years. What isn’t cultivated and trimmed is a shadow spared the razor for a few days. His skin is much darker, his hair longer, heavier than he’d ever been. His left arm is not the prosthetic he’d been fitted with after he'd lost the limb, replaced with something durable, for the hard labor he had a penchant for.

“I can’t believe I didn't recognize you,” Mercy says, after finding her breath. “ _You_ , of all people.”

“You do know a lot more of me than most folk do, angel,” McCree says. “I’ve gotten fatter and I ain’t wearing black all the time. Got a mountain man thing goin' on. You haven’t, though -- changed, I mean.”

“I have crow’s feet.” Mercy bears her teeth to show them off.

“I’m not feelin’ sorry for you.” McCree squints, lines creasing over his cheeks. “Lookit me, now, an old man.”

“I _am_ looking,” Mercy says, still trying to swallow the catch in her throat, to find equilibrium. “How could I not?”

McCree stands, holds his arms open. “You can do more than look,” he says. “C’mere already, angel.”

Mercy manages enough self-control to not fling herself forward. She presses her face in the crook of his neck, the stubble there scratchy against her skin. She wraps her arms up and under his biceps, clutches at his shoulders, his back. McCree has never been soft-muscled, but he was sandy red rock before, with a little give. Now, the pressures endured in his absence have compressed him into solid granite. He smells of unfamiliar soap and conditioner, dry spice and trail dust. Mercy wonders if he is similarly estranged, her own body wiry with new strength, her scent a passing stranger's perfume.

She knows better: McCree would recognize her anywhere, even if she was the one in tattered rags and unruly hair. He buries his nose in her messy half-bun, nuzzling the crown of her head. She hears him snuffle, the beginnings of a tender heart unfolding after years without a single bloom, and frees herself enough to look at him.

“Shit,” he says, blinking sudden tears from his eyes, “I missed you so goddamn much, Angie. I've been so goddamn lonely --"

“ _Schatzli_ ,” Mercy says, soothing.  _My little treasure_. She cups McCree's cheek, feels soft hairs among the sandpaper. He leans into her touch.

“You're not alone any longer," she says, heart fluttering with her words, "you're _home._ "

McCree goes still. Quiet. He draws away from Mercy's hand.

"Am I?" he asks, stoic. Almost cold. "Am I _really_ home, Angela?"

"We've put the call out for all our old agents." A spike of desperation colors Mercy's next words: "I _know_ it won't be like before, but it will get better in time."

McCree huffs, shakes his head. He gestures beyond the dingy office window to the crumbling expanse of the warehouse, the bowed shelves and rotted crates evidence of six years of neglect. It is not unlike the shadowy place they'd disappeared to, after the fall.  " _Look_ at this place. How can this be home, Angela?"

"This isn't going to be home base, Jesse." Desperation, and now a little impatience. "We're not setting up camp here. There are a few bases we can reclaim safely -- you can help me decide on those -- and then we can start bringing people in."

"Mm."

Mercy takes a step back. McCree is a stranger again, his sun-warmth shuttered to her senses.

"Friendly company will make it all feel -- welcoming," Mercy says, "you'll see."

McCree casts his eyes down, dark lashes hiding tired eyes. "But will it be home?" he asks, "or will it be just another place to hide?"

Mercy is silent. She has no strength to lie.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have they been apart so long that they no longer speak the same language?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **PAIRINGS: Implied Mercy/McCree, Past Widowmaker (Amélie)/Mercy.**
> 
> 01/02/17: Small edits made. I'd written the Halloween copy before the Halloween comic came out! I feel like a savant. A very sad savant, though, considering.

McCree has been around a week and already he’s streamlined the recall-and-recruit process. He is a seasoned second-in-command: he does not step on Mercy’s toes, does not complain about her tight-fisted control, does not overreach her authority. Instead, it’s his job to gentle her into new ideas, pose corrections with thoughtful words, a veteran farrier with a finicky prize mare. Most of the time, Mercy lets him take her lead, and knows the obedient herd will follow them. Sometimes, she bucks him off, and they must start over.

Today, as their sky skiff makes its way across the Alboran Sea, she is ready to toss McCree over the saddle and into the water below. The argument: the best abandoned base for their new HQ. McCree has dug his heels in, himself a stubborn horse.

“Gibraltar's the first choice, angel,” he says, “you know that.”

“If I ‘knew’ that, this would not be an issue.”

”Not ‘till we’re stronger, and even then --”

“Stronger? Ellesmere is more _remote_ , Jesse. Easier to defend.”

“Easier to freeze to death, you mean. Remember Antarctica?”

Mercy leans back in the co-pilot’s chair, hands to the ceiling. “Of _course_ I remember Antarctica, and Ellesmere is nothing like Antarctica.”

“I’m just saying,” McCree says, with his impossibly reasonable cadence, “no one wants to be a hero so bad that they’re willing to freeze all their bits off.”

Mercy is a doctor, practical-minded in matters of the body; Jesse McCree knows the intimate matters of the common soul. If McCree declares Overwatch’s old Arctic training base unfit for their once-and-future soldiers, Mercy must listen.

“I simply don’t want them to think it’s some kind of coastal vacation, Jesse,” Mercy says. “Gibraltar is more than just our little nest in the rock.”

“You ever hear of getting bees with honey rather than vinegar?” McCree smiles at her, a touch smug. “Draw ‘em in, then dash all their hopes of sightseein’ when we put them through PT, right?”

The transport shudders as it begins to dock, and McCree leans back to let autopilot take the course. He reaches up to scratch his scalp, an old thoughtful tell of his, the pinched rim of his hat brushing the cramped cockpit.

“The rock’s the only neutral place where we’ve got any claim,” he says, as the tractor beams release them, and they settle on the drone platform. “Besides, you know we’d be trouble to the Native folks in Eureka. We’re trying to protect people, not draw attention to them that’re helpin’ us out.”

“A salient point,” Mercy says. She rubs her eyes. “I will consider it.”

“‘Consider’?” McCree grins, tucks a hand behind her neck, leaning into her space. “You mean, I’ve won.”

“Don’t be smug, _schatzli_ , it’s ugly on you.”

“That’s a lie, angel, you like me bein’ a scoundrel.” McCree kisses her cheek. “C’mon, let’s not keep Winnie waiting.”

Winston has lived at the Gibraltar base since the split. He is an invaluable asset to their team; this had not changed, even after Overwatch had been shut down. Winston is the one that sent the recall notice in the first place; he is the one who maintains Athena’s network, pipes her into every safehouse Tracer and Mercy set up in Mainland Europe. He would have joined them in person, but he isn’t much for covert travel, on account that he is a hyper-intelligent, genetically engineered super-ape.

Winston waits for them up the steps from the docking platform. Mercy can see his great form pacing behind the glass door, its smooth face a jewel in the jutting rock. He pulls open the bay door with a single hand, showing off his impressive height and strength.

“Hello, _schnügglerli_ ,” Mercy says, reaching out to embrace one of his great arms. “I’m glad to see you, rather than just hear you.”

Winston does not return her greeting. Instead, he secures the door, and asks: “Did you bring the goods?”

“No ‘hello’ for your family? Well ain’t you the rudest thing,” McCree says, chuckling. “You lost your manners or somethin’, Winnie?”

“I have regressed in my isolation, I suppose,” Winston says. He bears his teeth in a gorilla’s smile, thumping his chest in a joke of aggression. “And you haven’t answered me: where’s my payment? I’d hate to kick you out, you just got here.”

“Your _bribe_ is in the ship,” Mercy says, wagging a hand as she mounts the stairs to the control room. “Get it yourself, if you want it so badly.”

Winston taps his knuckles to the ground, grunting. “I can't even fit my head in that tiny skiff, Angela. I'd get stuck."

"Then do what you're best at, Winston!  _Innovate_."

Winston huffs heavily through his big nostrils, knuckle-walking beside her. He’s of a height to Mercy when hunched over. Over his shoulder, she sees McCree retreat, then hears one of the smaller side-doors hiss open: he’s stolen back to the transport.

She’s logging their time into one of the first-floor terminals when McCree returns. He’s got a shrink-wrapped three-pack of peanut butter in the crook of his arm, their luggage tight in his metal hand.

“Didn’t want you whinin’ no more,” McCree says, tossing Winston’s gift to him. “More in the ship, but we can get that tomorrow. I ain’t your errand boy.”

“No, but now you’re my favorite,” Winston says. He sits with the package between his dextrous feet, pulling the plastic apart while he cleans his glasses with his free hands.

“I see how it is,” Mercy says. “Winston would let Talon itself in, if they had a palette of peanut butter.”

“Yep,” Winston and McCree say in unison. Mercy laughs, a sound that lifts the pressure in her chest.

“I see this floor is now a boy’s club,” she says. “I will leave you two be.”

Mercy takes the stairs to the mezzanine, luggage in tow. Winston has surrendered his personal office for Mercy and McCree’s temporary rooms until the officer’s quarters are cleaned. It smells of lime and cucumber soap, the faintest hint of banana. Two sleeping bags have already been carefully arranged under the window, pillows flat like they’ve melted to the floor. To most, the arrangement would not be inviting: to Mercy and McCree, it was still a luxury to sleep on an even surface.

Mercy drags the duffels under the window, opens hers, fishes out something more comfortable to wear. She heads towards the server room for its artificial warmth, and gets down to her bra when she realizes the shirt she wants is still on top of her luggage.

She pauses at Winston’s desk on her way back. It has been hastily neatened to be presentable, stacks of books and old-fashioned computers, a tied-off bag of trash hidden beneath one of the table eaves. The surface presents an organized sort of chaos, peanut butter screw-tops holding down old-fashioned printouts, corralling loose paper clips and data drives.

Mercy’s eyes are drawn to a photograph of her and Lindholm pinned near the left monitor, the two of them dressed for a Halloween party, wearing Gabriel's meticulously crafted costumes. She reaches out, traces the lines of her own smile. It unnerves her, to see the light in her eyes she cannot summon in the present.

 _Happy Halloween, Winston!!_ Where had the gorilla been, that they’d have sent him a snapshot like this? Wouldn't he have been with them? Gabriel’s yearly “Trick-or-Treat” party in Zürich had begun years ago for the kids: Lena, Fareeha, Winston. But no, that year, they’d all been in school. In their absence, it allowed the rest of the family to that kind of idiot revelry adults indulge in, when there are no young people to impress.

Mercy remembers drinking nearly everyone under the table, tossing her witch's hat on the table in defeat when Reinhardt triumphed. She remembers eating her weight in fresh pretzels, sobering up just in time to have Ana drag her and Amélie out on the town. She remembers Ana’s cheerful, knowing goodbye at the foot of a five-star hotel: “I’ll tell Gérard where to join you both for breakfast”. She remembers that flimsy orange cape, a brightness discarded against the carpet of their rented room. The blue light of night on Amélie’s pink-pale skin, those nimble, patient fingers unclasping her jeweled bodice, she remembers Amélie, _Amélie_ _\--_

“Angel?”

McCree.

He wears only his undershirt and skivvies, flannel and trousers in his hand. He’s over his duffel, changing into sweatpants for comfort. His brows crease, his full mouth purses with questions he will not ask. She wonders how long she’s stood staring at nothing.

“Winnie is gettin’ dinner ready,” McCree says. “You gonna join us?"

“Oh, ah, yes, momentarily."

“I’ll take your word for it,” McCree says. “But I tell you, if you ain’t down in ten minutes, I’m sendin’ King Kong up to nab you.”

“ _No._ "

She's sharp, then softens quickly to recover: "Oh, God, no, Jesse, I need --” She clears her throat. “I need time, to myself.”

McCree steps forward.  “Angela, I'm --”

“It’s okay, Jesse.” Mercy curls her hand to her chest. She does not step up to meet him. “I’m -- just not very hungry.”

They change their clothes, now, backs to each other. Silence is a physical distance. Once, they’d known each other’s moods like their own. This man, once Mercy’s closest friend, half her heart, is now a stranger. Have they been apart so long that they no longer speak the same language?

They had stood against each other, when the schism had come: Angela behind Gabriel, Jesse behind Jack. If they’d tried to hold things together after the fall, they would have instead torn each other apart in ravenous grief, and dismantled what remained of their family. The eldest children, the scions of Overwatch’s next generation, had disappeared in the settling dust. Parting had been for the best.

Mercy turns to speak, to beg Jesse’s forgiveness, and is left breathless. The pebbled glass of the bay window scatters evening’s ruby light, a bloody gradient. The sunset makes love to McCree’s warm skin, a holiness to his auburn hair. He is divine. Her stunned look is reflected in his eyes, and she knows he sees her the same way: untouchable.

“I’ll,” McCree clears his throat, wincing at his own voice, “I’ll save some for you.”

“ _Dangge_ , _schatzli._ ”

McCree leaves, bare feet clapping against the metal steps, gone. Mercy watches the sun set in full, hand to the warm glass. Its heat does not reach her tired heart.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mercy wakes to the chattering of birds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS : None.**  
>  **PAIRINGS : Mercy/McCree.**  
> Mercy and McCree get a little friendly-frisky in this chapter, but it doesn’t go far. I can’t really define their exact relationship so I’m trying to let the writing do the explaining instead. See notes at the bottom for other information. Thank you for reading so far!

Mercy wakes to the chattering of birds.

It is a buoying contrast to last night. Mercy had joined the boys for a late dinner, despite her previous protests. The three of them had made impersonal small talk, parted to clean up, to get ready for bed. She’d said little to McCree, who had seemed distant still, as though he were not yet accustomed to human interaction again. Sleep had come quickly, at least: deep, with no dreams.  

Waking is less pleasant, with the headache and bacterial taste of morning dehydration, the knowledge of the toilet being too far away for comfort. Mercy moves slowly, not worried about waking McCree with her fumbling from the floor: the man sleeps through hurricanes, if given the chance. He is sprawled on his stomach when she glances at him, his bare arms bunching up the thin pillow he’s using, face turned enough to one side for breath.

Tracer’s voice echoes like sparrow song from the first floor. It is hard to make out the words; Mercy’s grasp of English is minimal in the morning, worse now than ever, having communicated in everything _but_ before the recall. At the moment she has more pressing tasks at hand than conversation. She uses her minimal processing power to drag herself to the head.

Mercy stares at herself in the bathroom mirror, sees her blotchy face and puffy eyes, considers putting her head under the cold tap. A shower would be preferable, but all human-sized towels are still in storage, somewhere below. Mercy pulls back her oily hair and notices the silver has progressed from her temples, around her ears. It’s begun, she thinks; I won’t be surprised if I go all white early, like Jack.

Jack, who never did finish going from wheat-haired to white.

Mercy dries her face and walks downstairs.

“I _know_ we need to try and reclaim our Highlands base,” Winston says. He’s on jar two of the peanut butter, and he’s angrily dipping stalks of celery into this one. Tracer is winding him up; Mercy plucks an iced coffee from the cooler and watches the one-sided volley.

“If you know, then why ain’t you here reclaimin’ it already?”

A rather fantastic crunch between Winston’s impressive jaws. “Because _Gibraltar_ is where Angela and Jesse _said_ we should start.”

“Do you do _everything_ they tell you to do?”

Winston fists his feet with brief annoyance. “They’re our superior officers, Lena. _You_ have to listen to them, too. Anyway, don’t you have that speech to go to?”

Tracer's heart-shaped smile fills the projection frame. “You tryin’ to get rid of me, big guy?”

“Maybe,” Winston grunts. “Look, I’ll ask Jesse and Angela if they want to head to England soon, to take a look at Torridon.”

“Watchpoint’s in _Scotland_ , love,” Tracer admonishes. “Scotland’s its own place now, you know, very hard won, independent, whatnot. Past couple decades.”

Winston’s jaw and brow practically meet with his confusion. He thumps his chest with a free first. “I know it is, Lena --”

“Then why’re you saying you’re heading to England, now?”

“I didn’t _say_ we were going to Torridon first -- I said we’re -- _rrgh_ \-- it’s because _you’re_ in England!”

“Ohh, that's where I am!” Tracer covers her teeth with her upper lip, bows her puckered mouth up in an approximation of an ape’s cheeky grin. “I'd forgotten!"

“Lena Meredith Oxton,” Mercy says, stepping into the camera’s eye, “stop harassing your brother.”

“Awh,” Tracer says. “Mum’s here, how boring.”

It is hard to believe Tracer is twenty-six, now, always in Mercy’s head as a scrawny, scrappy _gamin_ , the youngest among the old guard. She has aged little, either due to her accident in the Slipstream, or in that strange immortality of a person’s twenties, when the fine bones of the face settle, when the elasticity of youth reaches its crest.

“I feel a visit to Scotland won’t go amiss,” Mercy says. “It'd be best to touch down in London first, see how the Underground is fairing."

“You just want to babysit me," Lena mutters.

"Can you blame her?" Winston rummages in his mini-fridge for his own drink. "Don't you remember what happened the last time there was an Omnic conference?"

“Aw, now, let our little lady do as she likes.” McCree drags himself down the stairs, looking surprisingly alert for a man who used to take an hour to ‘boot up’. "She's a free woman, ain't she?"

“The last time I checked, bail for assault in London is certainly not free,  _schatzli_."

“Oh, Angie, I swear I won't get into a row this time,” Tracer says, flustered. Winston has been avenged. "I can hold back."

"You, practicing self-restraint?" McCree chuckles.

“I got self-restraint for my last birthday, did you know."

"I don't remember footin' _that_ bill."

Tracer’s freckles bunch as her nose wrinkles. “You all think what you like. _I_ think it’d be sort of rude to Master Mondatta, me gettin’ into a scrap while he’s around preaching nonviolence, yeah?”

“Aren’t you surprisingly astute today, _müsli_. I might just believe you.”

“Well, I’ll take her up on her word,” McCree says, fixing a cup of powdered coffee. “We’ll all go see you. Winston'll make sure you keep your promise, won't you, Winnie?"

"Uh, yes," Winston says, between pleased and terrified at his inclusion.

“If you’re bringing him along, you’re gonna need a bigger boat,” Tracer quips, a line from a monster movie a hundred years past. “Speaking of _lines_ , I’ve got to queue up.”

A quick salute, “ta-ta”, "take care", then the screen flicks off. McCree mutters, “Lil’ shit,” over his coffee.All fondness.

“Bring a few banana peels to slip her up,” Mercy suggests to Winston, raising her drink in a toast.

“That’d require fresh bananas,” Winston says, somber, “and I ran out last night.”

Breakfast is peanut butter on graham crackers. They swap mild stories of their time apart, sanitized fairy tales. Winston, unsurprisingly, has the least to share.

“Damn,” McCree says, “you must’ve been bored to tears here, Winnie.”

“Oh, yes, really uneventful few years,” Winston says. “Not many visitors. I have a few helping hands with some sympathizers down in the city. They help keep this place stocked, keep me fed.”

“That's lovely," Mercy says. "Have you had any trouble follow you, though?"

“Of course not,” Winston says, but he takes more time to prepare his next cracker than necessary.

Winston knows that Mercy and McCree have seen the carbon scoring, bullet holes, scratches on the ground, the patched window in the office, cracked tables and crushed computer parts stuffed into shadows and corners. The two humans exchange looks, and decide now is not the time to call Winston out on his lie. 

McCree stands, dusting cracker dust from his lap. “Well, while we’re thinking about trouble, let’s plan on a time to see Lena.” 

“So, do we have that bigger boat?” Mercy asks, corrects: “a plane, I mean.”

“Yes,” Winston says. He’s finishing off the peanut butter jar with a new bunch of celery, and he's still agitated. “There’s more than one, even. How _else_ do you think I got here, Jesse?”

“By flyin’ out of your own ass,” McCree says. “Pick one and fix it up, you’re coming with us.”

“So I can _stay_ in the plane?” Winston’s lip curls, teeth showing, sullen. “It’ll be the only place I’ll fit in England. Where the hell am I going to go once we land?”

McCree shrugs, smiles. “You know the answer to that, Winnie.”

 _Where does an eight-hundred pound gorilla sit? Anywhere he wants._ Mercy and Winston roll their eyes.

Winston heads to one of the larger hangars while Mercy and McCree unload their small sky skiff, bring in their armor and weapons, their usual supplies, the entire palette of peanut butter tubs they’d brought to restock Winston’s supplies. They uncover some toiletries along the way and take turns in the upstairs shower; the hot water must be run until it stops being rusty.

They return, fresh in body and mind, to the control room. McCree sets up a proper pot of coffee brewing, and Mercy produces two datapads and two paper pads, one for each of them. They drag a mis-match of chairs to the big table, turn the globe projection off, put their heads together.

“Acquisitions -- be easy to get ‘em down the coast like Win has,” McCree says. “They already help him out, figure they’ll be able to help with bigger orders, long as they’re not the ones having to pack ‘n ship them by themselves."

Angela hums. “We should do a headcount before we make our first order, though. What’s the initial roster look like?”

“As of last night,” McCree says, pulling up a list on his data pad, “we still have twenty-five slabs of fresh rookie meat waitin' for the grill.”

“Mmm, that trip to Torridon looks necessary. We can take an inventory of what’s left over.” Mercy pauses, rubs her jaw with her stylus. “Any more recalled agents checking in?”

“No one new, or who’s ready to move out.” McCree scratches his head with his metal hand. “Haven’t heard from Genji for about three days, though I reckon he’s okay.”

“Where was he last?”

“With a Shambali retainer,” McCree says, “in Brittany. He was short on details, but he _is_ travelling with Omnics.”

Mercy doodles a single Omnic symbol on her paper pad, ‘O’. Like an eye. “Maybe he’s in London, attending Master Mondatta’s speech.”

“I’d figure that, but I hope they’re careful. London and Omnics don’t mix well, lately.”

The rest of the meeting is stale. The itinerary is set out: tomorrow, to London, to renew a few ties with the Underground. To Scotland, in the Highlands, to see what they can salvage from their mountainside base.

And then, a return to Gibraltar, to welcome the new and old. The resurrection of Overwatch.

It makes even Mercy anxious, the idea that they will be doing this, on their own. Her nerves make her quiet, and she remains so while McCree finalizes the meeting’s minutes. When he’s done, Mercy pushes her empty mug towards his left elbow, clicking pitted metal and enamel together.

“This looks a little rough, _schatzli_ ,” she says. “When’s the last time you’ve had maintenance?”

“It works fine,” McCree nudges the mug back. “Don’t worry, I know you hate me lookin’ shabby. I’ll get Sir Gimli to pretty it up, when he gets here.”

“‘When he’ -- oh _no_ , you didn’t give Lindholm a date to fly in, did you?”

“No-ho-ho!” McCree waves a hand. “I know as well as you do it don’t matter what schedule we set up. He’d just grab Willie and be on the doorstep next day, settin’ up shop. I ain’t ready for this place smelling like old men and nasty beer.”

A relieved, thoughtful pause. “Their choice in beer isn’t _that_ bad,” Mercy says.

“Just ‘cause _you_ ain't’ got no taste, angel, don’t mean the rest of us aren’t discerning.”

“Lick my ass,” she replies in German, and moves behind him. Her hands slide down McCree’s neck, and finds him tense, which is no surprise. He makes a boyish whimper as she begins to smooth knots out of his shoulders.

“Unbutton your shirt, _schatzli_ ,” Mercy orders, after a few minutes of work. “I can’t reach lower, if you don’t.”

“First you want me to lick something,” McCree stands, flicking a few buttons from his flannel, smile half-cocked. “Then you want me to undress so’s you can reach more of me -- what’re you trying to tell me, angel?”

“That I must have _some_ good taste,” she replies.

McCree unfolds his shirt. Mercy runs her palms up from his ribs through the wiry hair on his chest, behind his neck. McCree’s arms envelop her, pull her upwards. Her bare toes crowd near his, curling. Their noses touch. 

“We should take this upstairs,” McCree murmurs, rubbing the small of Mercy’s back with his textured metal fingertips, lifting the shirt hem there. “Think it might be a touch more comfortable.”

But only a touch: there is no bed to toss themselves against, so they make due with rucking up the blankets. They don’t rush. They climb over each other. Their knees knock at the other’s calves and legs, their teeth click together with failed kisses. They _laugh_. It’s a living snapshot of their youth, friendly fumbling and wandering hands. Eager teenagers all over again, only now their laughter lines are deeper.

Then there is a crack of close thunder, like mortar shot.

McCree and Mercy part immediately. Someone is breaking into the control room, not bothering with the hydraulic glass doors. They move for weapons, tactical cover. Their state of undress is no reason to throw away well-honed caution.

There’s the sound of metal warping as a bulkhead is folded to the wall, a two-fisted stampede. Winston’s tire slams angrily against the second floor walkway and the gorilla gallops towards the office. His eyes are wild; he is making vague animal sounds of distress, an ape child’s whine-cry, his lips drawn back from his half-open mouth to pant.

“Winnie,” McCree says. He holds up his free hand, the other on tucked at his side with his revolver. “Talk to us.”

“It’s Lena.” Winston tries maintain his balance on his knuckles, bulk heaving with the burst of speed. His glasses are missing, scattered somewhere between here and the hangar. Those black frames are more precious than gold to him, only recently mended.

“Deep breath, Win,” McCree says. “What’s this about Lena?”

Winston swallows a gulp of air. “Athena was -- I was talking to Athena when Lena patched in suddenly -- she didn’t even say anything -- Athena tried to track her, got nothing, and now we can’t get in touch with her. She just went cold -- her vitals spiked, they failed, but then they --”

Mercy gets up from her crouch, moves to Winston’s computer. She changes his pictogram keyboard, feels her surgeon’s calm weigh on her. Why Athena did not alert McCree and Mercy at the same time, when a terminal was so near their nesting space, would be a question she’d pose later.

She pulls up Tracer’s signal. The young woman is still in London. Her exact position shows her between King’s Row and Charlotte’s Carriage. Her vitals are poor: blood pressure, low, heart rate, erratic. There’s an alert regarding small traces of neurotoxin in her system that is suppressing her diaphragm, her lungs. As Mercy searches her medical database for an anti-toxin, Tracer flatlines.

There is a beat of helplessness, of three hearts failing with the halt of one. And then, startling them all, Tracer comes to life. Same poor vitals, a cold restart. Mercy is in the middle of instructing Tracer's AENs to produce the anti-toxin when the young agent flatlines again.

Then comes back. Up, down, up, down.

“I remember this, from the Slipstream flight,” Mercy says, stepping back. “Lena’s desynchronizing.”

Winston crowds behind her. “Is -- can you stabilize her from here?”

“The only thing I can do from here is prioritize her AEN to take care of the poison, Winston. No more.”

“Do you think the Accelerator is broken?”

“Does it matter?” Winston says, sagging in defeat. “Even a single bolt out of place is deadly.”

“It’s settled, then.” McCree says. He slings his hip holster over his half-buttoned jeans, does up the belt. He is all sharp, dead-eye focus when he looks up at the others.

Mercy remember that a steady second is still a man that issues orders. 

“You got that bigger boat ready, Win?" McCree asks.

Tracer’s playful words are like a sting. Winston swallows. “I -- yes, the Aurora. It didn’t need much work.”

“Tell Athena to fuel her up. You’re coming with us.” McCree tugs on his shirt, buttons it twice as fast as he’d been removing it. “Giving you both fifteen minutes to get your gear. Then we roll out.”

There had been a sweet light in McCree’s eyes only minutes ago, but it is spirited away by impending grief, leaving deep shadows. Not again, Mercy reads there, in the furrows and worry lines of his handsome face, as she helps McCree prepare for their departure. Not again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AEN** : A (made-up) term for latent organic nanomachines that perform restorative work on its host, either automatically due to raised adrenaline levels or by proxy. It’s been in use since the crisis, as a way to combat Omnic-related illnesses, and can break down metals for use. It has a fancy technical acronym but the popular misnomer is “Accident and Emergency Nanosurgery". Can also be referred to a person’s “A-and-E’s” or “Annie(s)". The latter nickname is fairly universal between all languages.
> 
> Scotland is independent in the future, because my best friend Liny says so! Also, huge thanks as always to my other UK friends, especially Monk & Thene, who help me with Lena’s slang/cursing when necessary. As always, love to my wife for helping me round out the characters with our endless headcanon conversations, and to my other Overwatch friends and fellow writers who are wonderful and supportive of my nattering. 
> 
> Love to y’all who read and Kudo and comment -- thank you, and keep letting me know what you think! I hope to keep y’all entertained for a while. :) Memoization has only two chapters left!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tracer is not meant to be so still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **  
> **  
> NO MAJOR WARNINGS, NO PAIRINGS  
>  There's a lot of talk of death.

Athena does not inform them of the assassination until a good half hour into their two hour trip. Mercy hears Winston’s mournful sound from the cargo hold. McCree’s response is to be tight-lipped, his human hand gripping the yoke tighter. Mercy feels only the serenity of a doctor’s detachment.

Mondatta is dead. Tracer may follow him. Mourning will come later.

Mercy checks Tracer’s vitals. The cycles come at longer intervals. She wonders if Athena is lying to her, omitting the truth of Tracer’s condition. She wonders just how much Athena has been withholding from them, from the start.

Aside from Winston’s company, Athena has been on her own, just like Mercy, just like McCree. She has been responsible for each former Overwatch agent. She knows where they hide; she knows if their hearts still beat. And she knows if they want to come back. Allegedly.

Do they _really_ have twenty-five eager students, waiting to be brought in? Have more former agents responded, willing to come back and fight, only to be turned down?

Athena is afraid, Mercy realizes. Afraid of becoming derelict, redundant in this new Overwatch. So she makes her own importance, by doling out information to the people she decides are best suited to the task, who will not break under the truth.

Has Athena also forgotten how to connect with the members of her family? Is she doing what she thinks is best, for everyone?

And how am I any different? Mercy wonders. Athena may have no casing, but she’s an AI. And AIs are people, now. What else could a person want, but to have control over rebuilding their family?

The Second Omnic Crisis peaks on the horizon, and already Mercy is questioning the humanity of one of her closest allies. She busies herself with the details of Tracer’s recovery mission.

It is not going to be easy, to conduct a search. King’s Row is now a mess of media and police scrutiny. The Aurora is cloaked and prepared to land in the Thames. From there, a flatbed hover truck, enough to handle Winston’s weight. Then, to Charlotte’s Carriage, the easiest place to approach King’s Row from behind. Athena says she’ll have someone rendezvous with them at the old church, one of the safer entrances for Omnics to travel above ground, and Tracer’s most recent base of operations.

It’s surprising that the younger agent has not yet been found by the authorities. Perhaps she’d had a final boost of self-preservation, energy enough to haul her flickering form between the shadows rubbish bins and post boxes to hide.

Mercy thinks of the small creatures trapped in a forest fire, toppled trees blocking their escape, leaving them to curl up in their dens to die.

McCree reaches out to Mercy, unhooks her stiff fingers from the datapad she is nearly crushing.

“She’s alive," he says. To him, to her. Unsaid: _There is no other option. We can’t lose her, too._

The shore is quiet, save a few sentries. Their rendezvous was meant to clear the area, and indeed, while the three agents take leave of the Aurora, they see more than one sedated guard, piled in neat little rows. Their communicators are gathered around a mini-grid, automating the sentry’s “check ins” to keep suspicion at bay.

The new high-rise buildings glitter mere miles away, casting their shadows on the traditional streets of Old London. Little clutches of sleeping humans and dozing drones mark the way like a pebbled path. Mercy has a fair idea who is helping them, tonight. She does not bother to look up, or around, for their benefactor. He will not be there, already five steps ahead of the rest of them. Hopefully he has prepared a triage. 

At last, from between two narrow tenement alleys: the fluttering pulse of blue in the dark. It almost matches the ambient light from the skyscrapers beyond King’s Row. Tracer has indeed found a rabbit’s hole to disappear into. She has done a middling job, however, one that when ( _if_ ) she wakes, she will be embarrassed about. Her legs stick straight out into the cobblestone from between two recycling bins. She’s wearing dark fatigues, tucked into her black knee-high boots, all rather stealthy, Mercy thinks. Save, of course, the chest plate set with glowing, pale sapphire light, keeping her connected to a linear time continuum.  

The Accelerator gutters briefly when Winston and Mercy approach. It is a strange, deepsea sound Mercy has never heard from it before. Blue Aura twists from the cracks in its clear casing. Under bruised lids, Lena’s eyes twitch. Her freckles are dark spots on her blanched skin.

“Her Aura’s overcompensating,” Winston says, “it want to keep her alive. It’s why she’s desyncing so often. It keeps trying to put her back before she was mortally injured -- even without her commanding it --”

“We can move her, now, Winston,” Mercy says, firmly, securing Lena’s neck brace. She will leave Winston to wonder all great scientific possibilities once they’ve got Lena in the workshop. “Take her. Let’s go.”

McCree waits in the truck. He pointedly looks forward, unwilling to make his own judgment on Tracer’s condition. Winston’s weight makes the vehicle jostle and draw low to the ground all over again; it staggers towards the reclaimed church, mere inches from the ground.

It is indeed Genji that meets them at the church’s service door.  All they can do is nod at him, because now is not the time for reunions. Everyone is quiet as they file into the building; there is a delay, as Winston cannot fit himself inside with Lena in his arms. McCree takes her, cradles her head to his shoulder.

He looks ill. Mercy is sympathetic, feeling her own stomach turn. Tracer is not meant to be so still.

The patient is moved from McCree’s arms to the triage bed. It is somehow worse, to see her laid out. Tracer is reduced to a hapless sparrow that’s struck a church window, now folded, crumpled beneath the cross. Mercy arranges her limbs and prepares to take a sample of Tracer’s blood, and then the Accelerator jitters, Tracer’s vitals fail, and the younger woman becomes momentarily transparent.

When she returns, Mercy aims the needle right at the artery in her neck. The young woman makes an animal noise of pain, jerking upwards. The noise is startling, but relieving. Mercy knows now that the reset puts her back into a place where there’s still time to heal her.

When Mercy gets her vial of blood, she turns her back on her patient, and Winston shuffles beside her.

“When should I start work?” Winston says, nervous. “I mean -- we aren’t sure if she’ll make it another round--”

“The nanomachines don’t have enough time to work before they’re reset,” she explains. “If we want her to live, we will need to give her the antitoxin ourselves.”

The neurotoxin is an aerosol, synthetic spider’s venom. Synthetic is easier to produce, of course, but also easier to negate in the blood stream. Tracer destabilizes once before the antidote is complete; they must wait another turn, to make sure she’s as close to peak health as possible. For that, they must wait patiently for her to die, again.

McCree and Genji excuse themselves from this spectacle; Mercy envies them, the tiniest fraction, and waits for Tracer to reappear.

When Tracer returns, Winston immediately pushes her over on her side, and Mercy plunges the needle straight into her spine. There’s a childish shriek of pain, and Tracer’s brown eyes flutter open, glassy with fear.

“Amélie?” she asks, panicked and blind, “ _Amélie?_ ”

Mercy’s hands, always stable when she works, shake a little at the name. She clears her throat. Steady. Steady. “No, _müsli_ , it is Angela and Winston.”

“We’re going to help you,” Winston says. He is only slightly troubled by Tracer begging for a woman eight years disappeared. “Just stay still, Lena.” 

They might have asked the sun not to rise. “Fuck, oh, that hurts, fuck,” Tracer says, each time she’s jostled or prodded. “Fuck off, both of you.”

“She’s feeling better,” Winston mutters as he fuses the cracks in the Accelerator. Mercy wipes the sweat from his brow, as if he’s in this third hour of a great surgery.

“A small mercy,” Mercy says, priming another injection.

“Piss off,” Tracer replies, then passes out.

Tracer does not disappear, this time. Her vitals have leveled out. The worst, now, is that she’s dehydrated, covered in smaller pains and cuts. Those are easily tended to.

Mercy excuses Winston, while she works on Tracer’s lesser injuries. Half an hour later, McCree and Genji follow the gorilla back out to the old sanctuary, their arms full of blankets and pillows. Dinner is oatmeal and bitter tea, and only Mercy manages to stay awake after they’ve finished eating. She dozes beside Tracer’s palette, thumbing through news reports, until she too succumbs, and wakes up hours later to a persistent finger flicking her brow.

"Wake up, Angie," Tracer says. "I need to take a piss."

“Well, a good morning to you,” Mercy says.

It takes a good ten minutes to help Tracer find a relatively respectable place to empty her bladder. Mercy helps her wash off in the sink, slicking back the younger woman’s brown locks.

“Need a proper shower,” Tracer mutters. "Look a fright."

"You do look a little like a --"

"A drowned rat? A dead bird?"

There's a sharp shift in the air. Mercy's hand draws away from Tracer's shoulder. "Lena."

Tracer doesn’t move. She braces her hands against the toilet sink, staring at the bottom of the dingy mirror.

“God,” she whispers, to her reflection, not to Mercy. “I should tell you.”

“You can file a report later."

“No, I need to tell you before I -- can't.”

She knows by the sound of Tracer’s voice that this is not a truth Mercy wants to hear. Perhaps Athena has had the right idea all along, omitting ugliness for the sake of sanity.

“Widowmaker's the one who killed Mondatta. I thought I could -- I could stop her. I --" Tracer swallows. "I tried, I did. Then she hit me with -- whatever the hell was killing me -- but I kept fighting, yeah? I thought I’d rewound enough -- enough to have it not fuck me over.”

“You had no idea it would be so pernicious, _müsli_.”

“I cottoned on right quick that I wasn’t doing well, so, I went for the pounce, yeah?" The Accelerator's color flickers with Tracer's turmoil. "And got my arse put right into the gravel. That's -- that's when I got a good look at her without the mask. Shit, I thought it was the poison at first, that I was hallucinating. I mean, I’ve met that tart at the Museum, yeah? I just didn’t want to believe it then -- but last night --”

“Wait.” Gooseflesh, up and down Mercy's arms. “You're saying you _recognized_ Widowmaker?"

Tracer looks at Mercy, heart-sick and wide-eyed, and goes unstrung, losing her steam. "Angie, oh, fuck, I _can't_ \--"

Mercy remembers the name Tracer said on the operating table, the first thing out of her throat that wasn't a death rattle. Doctor's oaths be damned.  She pulls Tracer forward, shaking her so that her shoulders hit the tile wall. "Lena, _who is she?_ "

"It’s Amélie," Tracer whispers. She can't meet Mercy's eyes, her own lowered in shame. "Oh, God, Angie. I'm sorry. Widowmaker is Amélie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Aura** \- A common English word for the source of energy that comes from within someone.* People may have both a passive and “active” ability to manipulate their Aura. In Japanese, this is related the concept of “ki”. The Shimada brothers, for instance, learned to pattern and personify their "ki" as dragons via their family's tradition. *(Let's pretend this is a Serious Scientific Term sixty years in the future. Sounds great!)
> 
> Thanks so much for reading so far! Love you guys for the kudos & comments. And of course, much love to Monk for always helping me out with Tracer's lingo -- check out her excellent [Digging for Fire](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8168969) for some great OVW fic!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A healthy body, a healthy mind, a healthy heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNINGS: Implied sex between McCree & Genji. Non-explicit sex scene between Mercy & McCree. **  
> **PAIRINGS: McCree/Genji, Mercy/McCree, Past Widowmaker (Amélie)/Mercy, Heavily Implied McCree/Genji & Mercy/McCree/Genji.**  
> Please see end notes for more commentary.

In the open space of the hangar, the chatter of birds again. This time subdued, like the soft cooing of city pigeons at roost, rather than bright starling song. Tracer is on the mend, and is trying her best to fill emptiness with her sound, but she can only do so much. Winston is by her side, keeping nervous vigil over the Accelerator’s occasional erratic sparks. There is talk of finding new materials for a slimmer model, a stronger model, but they must wait, until funding is again flush. If it ever is.

They have been home -- no, in Gibraltar -- for nearly a week. Tracer and Winston are the only people Mercy interacts with more than a few minutes a day. She has not much spoken to Athena, save for when necessary. McCree and Genji have made a habit of disappearing after meals. They are not always together, but they have been _together_. McCree’s neck shows the tell-tale scrape of Genji’s synthetic lower jaw and teeth; Genji’s remaining skin, a mystery beneath layers of armor, more than certainly has the red rake of McCree’s new whiskers.

Today they have not even come to the mess for breakfast. Mercy seeks them out. On her return to the officer’s quarters, she knows, instinctively, that Genji is already gone. He has a presence to him, one Mercy once knew as surely as McCree’s: there is a hum, a displacement of air that is all his own. There is now only open space and the lingering, musty smell of stagnant air only recently vented.

Outside the barracks, where one can see the drone launch tower, the scent of cloves and storage-chest cedar is much more pleasant.

McCree is there, wrapped up in scarlet. His drape is not the tattered, rust-colored poncho with orange edges that he’d worn when he’d checked in. Instead, a creation of one of Gabriel’s three older sisters, in the style of her husband’s tribe. Bright red, etched in black and deep yellow, patterns of eagles outlined in white. Fareeha had spent many summers with her aunt’s family during her secondary school years, up along the West Coast of Canada, and always brought back gifts. Mercy still has hers, Fareeha’s clumsy stitching at the hem, a little impatient, like the artist herself.

Pharah -- her callsign, her name now as much as Angela is Mercy -- has yet to check in with them. Or, has she done so, and and Athena has told her to wait?

Mercy stops that line of thought, before it goes further. Not work, not Athena, not now.

“Hey, angel.” McCree wears nothing but sleep trousers and the wrap, feet bare. It explains why he’s bundled up at all, in Gibraltar’s perpetual mild climate. He’s shaved his cheeks, trimmed his beard a little shorter. More than likely, Genji has complained about that bottle-brush feeling -- even Mercy still feels the scratch from their playful kissing only a week ago. She tries to recapture that ephemeral youth she’d felt in those moments, but it does not come.

Mercy isn’t sure what she wants, here, approaching McCree first, when there has been such careful measures put up between them. She does not reach out for him, only steps to his side. Their elbows almost brush. She can feel his warmth.

“ _Schatzli_ ,” she says, “is our little prince keeping you up?”

“Always.” A lightness in McCree’s voice that she envies. She wonders, though, if she’s simply misreading him: they are still speaking unfamiliar dialects of posture and poise, of inflection and tone. “How’s our baby bird?”

“Doing her very best to assure us she’s fine,” Mercy says. “Which she is not. But mending, physically. It is all we can ask for.”

“Winston’s got his hands full,” McCree says. He scratches under his chin: also shaven free of stubble. The clove smoke masks the scent of the finest bay rum aftershave. “Not that we don’t.”

“This is true,” Mercy says. “And moreso, soon. I plan on calling the old men tonight.”

“Oh, damn. I’m going to have to fight ol’ Bear for the mess kitchen, ain’t I?”

“Ain’t you.” Mercy smiles. “I am going to tell them to do some shopping before they come, though.”

McCree whistles. “With all of big Willie’s big money, right?”

“Indeed.”

“Tell ‘em to bring a farm with them, cause I’m tired of eatin’ peanut butter every other goddamn day.”

McCree yawns, stretches, the shawl with cast up like a sail with his corded arms the mast, the fabric reflecting on his metal arm. It is hard not to appreciate his body. Mercy prefers a woman’s shape to a man’s, but McCree is an altogether different matter. She knows that underneath that warm red-brown skin there is a man with a soul kinder and more open than anyone she’s ever known. That, fundamentally, has not changed, no matter the depths between them now. This inner beauty makes him somehow _more_ , the saint with a burnished copper halo, set against the garnet stain of the early morning sky.

“You could catch flies with your mouth open like that,” McCree says. He touches her chin. The feeling of skin-to-skin is alien. “C’mon, angel. What’s bothering you?”

“Us,” she says, nakedly.

“Not just us.” McCree tilts her chin up. “It’s part of it. I know what it is, Angela, I heard Lena, too.”

“I can’t talk about it.” But she doesn’t turn away. McCree runs a hand over his jaw, fingers drawing strands of Mercy’s hair over her cheekbones.

“These could cut glass, darlin’,” he whispers, heartbroken. “You gotta take better care of yourself.”

“It’s been a hard few years, Jesse.”

“Then let’s soften each other up.”

The shawl spreads flat on the catwalk. The rest of their sleeping clothes follow in pools of grey and blue. McCree fits Mercy against him, on top of him, lets her run the show, as she’s wont to do.

They move with care to reacquaint themselves with each other’s bodies, meeting sharp edges and strong muscle that had never been there before. As they must learn to speak a new dialect between them, they must learn new terrain. There are new scars on both of them, and they read them like old-fashioned braille: here, a bullet wound, there, a near-miss with a knife. Mercy finds her hands strange and ghostly against McCree’s darker skin, as if she’s become insubstantial in his absence.

Now, under an awning of jagged limestone and against a bed of soldered steel, Angela finds her form.

They have done this countless times over the years, though their affection has always been undefinable. But it _is_ a kind love, deepened by the ritual and physical trust of sex, a perpetual state of healing. Angela braces herself on Jesse’s chest as she finishes, lets go of six years of regret and isolation. In the liminal space between who they were and who they have become, they share one heartbeat.

After they’re done, a shower is necessary. It’s Jesse’s second of the day. Genji waits for them in one of the low tile of the stalls, sitting lotus-style, his metal-capped knees wagging as he watches his friends file in.

“You’re lucky,” he says, while Angela fusses with the hot water to very little avail, “that I managed to distract Winston and Lena from looking for you.”

“You want a reward for your hard work?” Jesse asks, then tosses his boxer-briefs towards Genji. The younger man catches it, twirls it by the band around one finger.

“You _were_ fucking right outside the hangar,” Genji says, tossing the underwear back. It slaps comically in Jesse’s face.

“Not _right_ outside,” Angela mutters, and turns her burning face under the tap to cool it.

The rest of the day is the first Angela feels she’s able to smile without guilt. She can’t even be mad at Lena, who, despite still being on orders for “bed rest”, has apparently slipped down to the city below to rendezvous with Winston’s current contacts. She returns mid-day, bringing fresh fruit and vegetables, fish to broil, a bag of short grain rice. An early dinner is a welcome feast, colorful as a children’s school play. They decide to call Torbjörn and Wilhelm while in the mess, splitting the calls together, and the walls echo with a liveliness that spills life like liquid light into Gibraltar’s lonely halls.

Everyone is thus occupied when Angela heads across the hangar to the command room. Jesse is right: there is more to her melancholy than just their estrangement . Now, with that on the mend, there remains to confirm the unknown.

“Athena,” Angela says, settling down on the edge of Winston's tire-chair, “may I talk to you?”

Athena is currently facilitating the call in the mess, but it is no hardship for her to split her time. Her tell-tale “A” flickers on the blank screen before Angela, in the other monitors that curl around the desk.

“Of course,” Athena says. “Would you prefer to switch to your native tongue, for this?”

“Yes,” Angela says. Less likely for strays to overhear, and understand.

“You have wanted to speak with me for some time.” Athena’s affected Grecian accent peppers her Swiss German, an oddity that gives her humanity. “I have been waiting for this meeting.”

“I’ve put it off for a reason.”

“Certainly, you have.”

“I’m ready now.”

“Then, ask.”

This moment, the oubliette, where truth is imprisoned when it should not be forgotten. As ugly as it is.

“Athena, how long have you known about Amélie?”

Athena’s blue equalizer flickers, briefly. Like she’s clearing her throat. “The Doomfist Mission.”

“That, I gathered.”

“Neither Agent Tracer nor Agent Winston’s reports said that they could confirm, without a shadow of a doubt, that Widowmaker was Amélie Lacroix.”

“Was there footage?”

“Of course there was footage,” Athena says, another flicker at the sides. She’s tense. It’s why they’ve been avoiding each other. Angela’s displeasure gets under Athena’s ones-and-zeroes, like Athena’s throttle over the truth has dug into Angela’s nerves.

“I could have watched the footage,” Angela says. He fingers curl on the desk. “I could’ve told you if you had just --”

“I made the decision _not_ to tell you.”

“You’ve been doing a lot of that, lately. You didn’t say a thing about Lena. Winston had to tell us.”

“You were busy.”

“ _Busy?_ ”

“I thought it best for you to have at least a moment’s enjoyment, even if it was a moment. You have not been doing well. I knew Winston would --”

“Wasn’t _doing well?_ ” Angela chews on the inside of her mouth, tamping down her brief burst of fury.  “Who are you to -- are you a _doctor_ now?”

A brief flicker of white-blue, at the sides. The AI pursing her lips. Angela does not get an answer. Instead:

“Do you know who the Reaper is, Angela? Because I do.”

Angela holds her breath.

“Do you want me to tell you?”

She’d seen the marks the first day, after breakfast: the black, greasy soot that remains, here and there, in the mezzanine and in the control room. Places that have not been cleaned, or couldn’t be. Ash that flakes where something more viscous -- blood, or worse -- has dried, crumbled. Familiar, in the worst way.

The Reaper has been here, in their base. He has struck against Overwatch directly. Undoubtedly, he will strike again. And like Amélie, he wears the face of someone beloved, someone lost, under his bone-colored mask.

Angela is surprised her words do not fog, with her full-body chill. “No, Athena.”

“You know?”

“I know.” I know, more than anyone.

“And yet, have you told anyone else?” Athena is calm, steady, but insistent. “Have you not made similar choices, as I have? To spare the others, for their sake’s. For their well-being and strength of mind.”

“‘A healthy body is a healthy mind,’” Angela recites.

“But you, a doctor, should know the reverse is true.” Athena’s electric voice, nearly pleading now. “Are not psychic hurts the same as physical ones, to the body? A slight, a moment of terror, sorrow? We cannot afford to strike new wounds and open old. But we must trust each other -- _trust_ our instincts -- until we are stronger. Then, we can be taken to task. Not before.”

Silence.

Beyond the office, the creak of ancient rock settling, accompanied by the tinny hum of electrical wire. The creak becomes the sound of bones twisting too harshly at their joints, the hum grows to a whine, a crescendo of static, and in the crackle there is a hiss from six years passed: _Look at me, Angela, look at what you’ve done_.

“Will this ever be home, Athena?” Angela sounds as stilted as the oldest omnic, suddenly lifeless, only capable of rote processing, of the most basic memoization. She has kept Jesse’s accusation in her memory, a painful set of data to recall at a moment of weakness. “Or will this just be another place to hide?”

“I cannot answer that,” Athena says. “But -- _listen_ , Angela. Listen --”

The monitors light up around her, briefly blinding. A panorama of the riot in the mess hall, more of that beautiful laughter of children lost and found. A family once unravelled, now beginning tie off at the frayed ends. Perhaps too tight in some places, straying off the course like Fareeha’s hurried stitches on her Eagle’s shawl. Those stitches biting into Angela’s palms earlier that day, curled hands on either side of Jesse’s head, that beautiful face so inviting and sweet. That, too, recalled, and this time, the pleasant memories warm her. An anesthetic to the ache in her chest.

A healthy body, a healthy mind, a healthy heart.

Athena’s screen returns, and it is dark again. The smallest flicker of the equalizer: she is waiting for Angela to speak.

“Thank you,” Angela says, at last. She wipes at her face, the tears that have so rarely come over the past few years, now freely salting her cheeks and chin.

“It is worth it,” Athena says. As if she could reach out, and touch Angela’s sharp cheekbones. As if she could stroke her hair. “Now, go. I think they all must be put to bed, sooner than later. I will let you know when Lindholm and Reinhardt are on their way.”

“Even if I’m 'busy'?”

The soft, synthetic laughter, indulgent and sweet. “Perhaps especially then.”

Angela returns to the officer’s quarters; Jesse and Genji's door is cracked, an invitation. She slides the door open the rest of the way, and finds a new single bunk has been shoved against the two already crowded together. Her duffel rests under the floor lamp. Genji is propped with his back against the wall, reading. The glow of his datapad illuminates the tell-tale swipes of raw red along his cheeks and exposed chest; Jesse is already face-first in his pillow, his snoring a soft whistle.  

“Welcome home,” Genji says, in Japanese.  

“I’m back,” she replies, in the same. Then in English: "Did you kill him?"

"Only a little death," Genji replies. He reaches over Jesse's massive back, puts datapad on the single bedside table. "I didn't expect you to be so late."

“Better late than never,” Angela replies, waves an imperious hand. “Move, _prinzli_.”

Angela shucks off her day clothes, save her skivvies, and curls up beside Genji. He throws one arm around her waist, pushes his nose into her shoulder, settling now for sleep. She places her chin on the crown of his head, inhales. He smells of cloves. The room is still stale, and so are the blankets, the pillows. But there is also the scent of metal polish, of dirty boots, work-sweat. 

And so, it smells like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've edited/remixed the [first chapter](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8104603/chapters/18573835) to flow better with the rest of the series.
> 
> Thank you for reading "Memoization"! Huge thanks to my pals (and fellow Overwatch writers, check their stuff out!!) [sassanids](http://archiveofourown.org/users/albion/pseuds/sassanids), [matchka](http://archiveofourown.org/users/matchka/pseuds/matchka), my Twitter List, and of course, [my wife](http://archiveofourown.org/users/shoi), whose Jesse McCree I borrow when I write this stuff.
> 
> If you'd like to read a little more on how Angela made Reaper, check out my other Overwatch fic, [We shall be monsters](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8013511).


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